There is a massive pool of warm water in the Gulf of Alaska, NOAA scientist Nate Mantua said in an email. It is unprecedented in the historical record, he added… the past year is way out of the historical range — “so who knows what will happen?”…

Scientists across NOAA Fisheries are watching a persistent expanse of exceptionally warm water spanning the Gulf of Alaska that could send reverberations through the marine food web. The warm expanse appeared about a year ago and the longer it lingers, the greater potential it has to affect ocean life… “Right now it’s super warm all the way across the Pacific to Japan,” said Bill Peterson, an oceanographer with NOAA.

This report here, by Howard Freeland and Frank Whitney, was linked to in the Enenews post.

In March 2014 there was something very unusual occurring in the Northeast (NE) Pacific that might have substantial consequences for biota in the Gulf of Alaska and southward into the subtropics… we see SST departures of 4.5 standard deviations… The anomaly field covers a large region of the N.E. Pacific… The authors of this article have never seen [such] deviations… Something as extraordinary as a 4.5-sigma deviation requires corroboration…

The answer is that Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant has releasing extremely radioactively contaminated water, starting in March 2011. The worst part was at the beginning. By early April 2011, humungous levels of iodine-131 and cesium-137 had been released.

Radioactive iodine at 7.5 MILLION times legal limit in water around Fukushima — Cesium-137 at 1.1 MILLION times limit

… Tokyo Electric Power Company says it detected 300,000 bequerels of iodine-131 per 1 cubic centimeter, or 7.5 million times higher than the legal limit in samples taken around the water intake of the No. 2 reactor at 11:50 AM on Saturday.

It also found 200,000 bequerels or 5 million times higher than the limit in samples taken at 9AM on Monday.

Monday’s sample also shows 1.1 million times higher than the national limit of cesium-137 whose half-life is 30 years. … (link)

300,000 becquerels per cubic centimeter detected in ocean water is 300 BILLION becquerels per square meter. Fukushima has been leaking ever since, but the worst of it occurred at the beginning of the catastrophe.

Models that predict the movement of particles in ocean water projected that it would move to the east, and be near North America by now:

Radionuclides give off heat by a process of radioactive decay. This is the reason that spent fuel rods have to be submerged in water, to keep them cool, so they don’t melt down. According to Arnie Gundersen of Fairewinds Associates:

Radioactive byproducts produce heat.

During the normal operation of a nuclear reactor, there is an accumulation of many man-made radioactive materials such as iodine-131, cesium-137, strontium-90, plutonium-239, and many others.

These radioactive byproducts continue to produce a lot of heat, even after the reactor is shut down, because radioactivity cannot be stopped. This unstoppable heat is called “decay heat.”

This decay heat occurs whether the radionuclides are in a reactor, in a spent fuel pool, or leaked into the sea. So it stands to reason that ocean temperatures would be extraordinarily high.

As you can see, the warm ocean plume is still moving to the east. The warm water itself creates a crisis for sea life, the salinity has dropped, and the winds that bring nutrients from the northern areas are blocked. From Freeland and Whitney,

Wind anomalies (Fig. 2a) show the cause of the warm anomalies in the ocean’s surface layer to be an unusual flow from the south as the North Pacific high pressure cell expanded northward. This pattern disrupted the path of the westerly winds that cross the subarctic Pacific, winds that normally transport nutrients from the subarctic North Pacific into the subtropics during winter… Without nutrients from the subarctic, the productivity of subtropical waters must decline.

An ecological crisis in the Pacific is launched, simply from the warm water, even not regarding the deadly radiation itself. It affects life in areas far away from the contaminated waters through changes in the wind patterns.

“As temperature rises, the zooplankton start to grow faster than the phytoplankton,” O’Connor explains. “The zooplankton are more abundant and faster-growing, and are able to eat all the phytoplankton in warmer water. This creates a bottleneck in the food chain that could have large implications for the ocean’s food web. (link)

Phytoplankton contribute up to 50% of the planet’s oxygen supply.

And this warm water is already profoundly affecting the climate of North America. The 500 mb geopotential height represents the temperature of the air at 18,000 feet. High values of this height (a ridge) correspond to warm temperatures, and low values (a trough) to cold.

Warm heights mean that the air is sinking, and little or no precipitation forms, and the surface air temperature is warm. Cold heights mean higher precipitation and cold surface temperatures. Air moves clockwise around the ridge, pushing north into the Arctic, where it pushes down cold air from these regions to the eastern US.

Last winter featured warm and dry conditions in the west, while the east had a cold and snowy winter. This is likely to happen again this coming winter.

And the ridge in the west has caused drought conditions in California:

The contaminated water will not move out for many years, but decay heat release will continue, so look for Pacific sea surface temperatures to keep increasing, and the drought to continue.

Can it really be this simple? A ketogenic diet…. or supplements like caprylic acid or medium-chain triglycerides… replace glucose metabolism with β-Hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate, or ketosis.

In myalgic encephalomyelitis (and multiple sclerosis), the ability to break down amino acids like tryptophan is affected by reduced IDO level. IDO isn’t there because it needs interferons like IFN-beta and IFN-gamma, which are essential building blocks of the immune system, which these diseases reduce. The ketogenic (high-fat, low-carb) diet, or ketone bodies in general, bypass this problem.

Evidence points to an effect on brain handling of amino acids, especially glutamic acid, the major excitatory neurotransmitter of the central nervous system. The diet may limit the availability of oxaloacetate to the aspartate aminotransferase reaction, an important route of brain glutamate handling. As a result, more glutamate becomes accessible to the glutamate decarboxylase reaction to yield gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), the major inhibitory neurotransmitter and an important antiseizure agent. In addition, the ketogenic diet appears to favor the synthesis of glutamine, an essential precursor to GABA. This occurs both because ketone body carbon is metabolized to glutamine and because in ketosis there is increased consumption of acetate, which astrocytes in the brain quickly convert to glutamine.The ketogenic diet and brain metabolism of amino acids: relationship to the anticonvulsant effect.

The extreme hypersensitivity to sound, and the whirlwind of discombobulated sensations that replaces ordinary thought in severe ME, and causes paralysis, is a type of seizure. GABA is a natural anti-seizure agent in the nervous system. This line of thought says that the neurological manifestations of M.E. are due to a metabolic disorder, which is triggered by imbalances in the immune system.

It is well known by the ME community (not ME/CFS) that this disease features abnormalities in cellular energy utilization.

This review article explores the rationale for using the KD and related dietary treatments in neurological disorders outside of epilepsy, and summarizes the clinical experience to date. An underlying theme of such diet-based therapies is that nutrients and metabolic substrates can exert profound effects on neuronal plasticity, modifying neural circuits and cellular properties to enhance and normalize function. At a fundamental level, any disease in which the pathogenesis is influenced by abnormalities in cellular energy utilization – and this implies almost every known condition – would theoretically be amenable to the KD. It is important to acknowledge that much of the data discussed here are preliminary and anecdotal, and hence need to be validated by well-controlled prospective studies. Nevertheless, that diet and nutrition should influence brain function should not be altogether surprising, and there are already abundant clinical and laboratory data linking defects in energy metabolism to a wide variety of disease states (Waldbaum and Patel, 2010; Roth et al., 2011; Schiff et al., 2011). Thus, the potential for interesting and novel applications of the KD and related dietary therapies is almost limitless (Stafstrom, 2004).The Ketogenic Diet as a Treatment Paradigm for Diverse Neurological Disorders

An increasing number of data demonstrate the utility of ketogenic diets in a variety of metabolic diseases as obesity, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes. In regard to neurological disorders, ketogenic diet is recognized as an effective treatment for pharmacoresistant epilepsy but emerging data suggests that ketogenic diet could be also useful in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer, Parkinson’s disease, and some mitochondriopathies. Although these diseases have different pathogenesis and features, there are some common mechanisms that could explain the effects of ketogenic diets. These mechanisms are to provide an efficient source of energy for the treatment of certain types of neurodegenerative diseases characterized by focal brain hypometabolism; to decrease the oxidative damage associated with various kinds of metabolic stress; to increase the mitochondrial biogenesis pathways; and to take advantage of the capacity of ketones to bypass the defect in complex I activity implicated in some neurological diseases. Ketogenic Diet in Neuromuscular and Neurodegenerative Diseases

Here we hypothesize that CNS depressants may promote consciousness recovery by reversing a condition of GABA impairment in the injured brain, restoring the normal ratio between synaptic excitation and inhibition, which is the prerequisite for any transition from a resting state to goal-oriented activities (GABA impairment hypothesis). Alternative or complementary mechanisms underlying the improvement of consciousness may include the reversal of a neurodormant state within areas affected by diaschisis (diaschisis hypothesis) and the modulation of an informative overload to the cortex as a consequence of filter failure in the injured brain (informative overload hypothesis).Silencing the brain may be better than stimulating it. The GABA effect.

A respiratory virus has sickened thousands of children across the US, and is rapidly spreading across the country. The CDC has analyzed samples, and found 40 incidences of enterovirus 68 (or D68) in Kansas City and Chicago. This infection may be life-threatening.
In addition to the states listed on the map, this illness has been reported in Michigan, New York, Virginia, South Carolina, and Alabama as of today.

Enterovirus 68 has aspects similar to rhinoviruses, which cause the common cold, and it spreads like the common cold, that is, from contaminated surfaces, person-to-person contact, and aerosols from sneezing.

Over the past 18 months, physicians in California have observed on rare occasions what may be a new disease, one in which patients, usually children, quickly and permanently lose muscle function in an arm or leg.

In some cases, patients have had infectious respiratory symptoms before the paralysis begins. The illness shares some features with polio, but it is not the same disease.

The cause of the disease is still unknown, but a strong possibility is that it is caused by a virus known as enterovirus-68, which was detected in two of five cases that Emmanuelle Waubant, MD, PhD, of UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital, and Keith Van Haren, MD, of Stanford University’s Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital, will present in detail at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology this spring.

An audio presentation by these neurologists can be found at this link. At 5:25 Dr. Van Haren states his belief that the polio-like paralysis was caused by enterovirus 68.

The Santa Fe New Mexican, Sept 6, 2014: Flynn accuses feds of blocking WIPP probe — New Mexico’s top environmental regulator lashed out at the U.S. Department of Energy this week, accusing it of impeding the state’s investigation into [the WIPP] radiation leak… Secretary Ryan Flynn warned [about] Energy Department roadblocks that have protracted the probe… Increasingly in recent weeks, the federal Energy Department has thwarted attempts by the state… Flynn accused the Energy Department of muzzling scientists with crucial information about the waste…. [They] asked for documentation supporting the scientists’ observations [but] the Energy Department has repeatedly refused… his frustration with the Energy Department grew as its denials… became more frequent… The Energy Department’s refusal to provide information raised suspicions among Flynn’s investigators…

Ryan Flynn is the cabinet secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department. This is a state agency which is independent of the Department of Energy, which is in charge of the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant. It’s a part of the state government, so it’s not an environmental watchdog group, but they have done things like block Hanford waste from being stored in the facility.

On Friday, Flynn accused the Energy Department of muzzling scientists with crucial information about the waste stream.

He said at times during the state’s investigation into the leak, LANL personnel have provided “outstanding communication” about the possible cause of the radiation release. But when the Environment Department has asked for documentation supporting the scientists’ observations, the Energy Department has repeatedly refused to provide it.

“During those positive meetings, information will be referenced, and there’s a willingness [by LANL personnel] to provide information that’s referenced during those meetings or presentations,” Flynn said. “After those meetings, information gets communicated up the chain of command and someone back at [Energy] headquarters decides that no, they’re not going to provide that information to the state.”

Well, they want to know what the nature of the chemical reaction that burst open the drum(s), for one thing.

Another thing is why the isotope ratios in the alleged waste stream from Los Alamos do not match the ratios determined at Station B at WIPP.

“Anything else is a sign of a poor safety culture and could be a danger signal for workers and the public,” Mello said. “Mislabeling drums and withholding information can be criminal. That’s one way serious accidents can happen.”

Right, I guess one way for the isotope ratios to not match would be that the drums were mislabeled in the first place. So what is in the drums? Perhaps high-level waste? Did it even come from Los Alamos? Maybe from Hanford?

Yes, it’s criminal. Criminal actions done by criminals in the government or working for the government.

[Los Alamos National Laboratory’s] review of the incident has led to uncertainty over the volatility of hundreds of other drums… The lab notified state environment officials late last month that it was re-evaluating and relabeling as “ignitable” or “corrosive” the contents of 86 drums at LANL… The Department of Energy also is reviewing and relabeling more than 300… stored in WIPP’s underground… [This] raises questions about the scope of the problem that led to the leak at WIPP.

Nobody knows if the other 300 drums involved are going to blow up.

Chris Harris, former licensed Senior Reactor Operator & engineer, Aug 28, 2014 (at 22:15 in): “It sure seems like that there’s a combination of a cover-up, and a combination of slip-shot record keeping. Now there’s talk of whether they ditched those records after the fact or before the fact, but those records are nonexistent. One would expect really good records as to what is being stored, where it’s being stored, when it was put away, when it was stored, all that – every bit of information that one would expect to have in a nuclear storage facility and these are missing, there’s a lot of information.